About

The Alexandria Black History Museum is housed in the historic Robert H. Robinson Library, Alexandria's separate but unequal library built in 1940. It owes its existence to attorney Samuel W. Tucker, who orchestrated a sit-in at the Alexandria library to gain access for African American residents. Instead of integration, the sit-in resulted in the construction of the Robinson Library, which served the African American community until desegregation in the early 1960s. Today the Museum serves to illuminate the stories of Alexandria's African American community and supports fostering intellectual growth and ideas through the Watson Reading Room, an attached research library.

This site is part of the Office of Historic Alexandria.